2025/'24: May wk4 -- May wk3 -- May wk2P2 -- May wk2 -- May wk1 -- April wk4 -- April wk3 -- April wk2 -- April wk1 -- March wk4 -- March wk3 -- March wk2 -- March wk1 --  Feb wk4 -- Feb wk3 -- Feb wk2 -- Feb wk1 -- Jan wk5 -- Jan wk4 -- Jan wk2 -- Dec wk4 P2 -- Dec wk4 -- Dec wk3
Click here for earlier Straight of the Trenches stories

 When one hurts or kills a women
one hurts or kills hummanity and is an antrocitie.
Gino d'Artali
and: My mother (1931-1997) always said to me <Mi figlio, non esistono notizie <vecchie> perche puoi imparare qualcosa da qualsiasi notizia.> Translated: <My son, there is no such thing as so called 'old' news because you can learn something from any news.>
Gianna d'Artali.

Zantimes - May 22, 2025 - By: Zahra Nader
{Opinion
When “feminism” defends the Taliban
Cheryl Benard’s recent commentary on the end of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Afghan refugees has outraged many Afghans. She argues that Afghanistan is not perfect, not “the Riviera,” but “improved,” “stabilized,” and most importantly, safe enough for 8,000 Afghan refugees to be forced back under the U.S. government’s new mass deportation policy. She shows her mild disapproval of the ban on education for girls, yet claims the private schools are “permitted to operate at any level.” (I am not sure where she got her information, but we have reported in December 2022 that Taliban banned private educational centres, including private schools for girls beyond grade six.) Perhaps, she might mean madrasas are open in “any level” to brainwash the next generation of Afghans. When Cheryl Benard suggests Afghan girls can attend private schools if public ones are closed, her words echo Marie Antoinette’s infamous “Let them eat cake” — but with a sharper cruelty, since she is a visitor. Benard compares the Taliban’s treatment of women to the situation in India, arguing that gender-based violence in India is more extreme and yet India remains internationally accepted. She cites examples like dowry deaths and gang rapes in India to suggest that international condemnation of the Taliban’s policies is selectively applied and perhaps unfair. She does not mention Taliban’s policies of gender apartheid, those edicts and laws that aim to systematically erase women from public life. If the statistics on violence against women elsewhere can justify systematic oppression of women in Afghanistan, she can give the example of America, where every day at least three women are murdered by a current or former intimate partner. In her attempt to defend the deportation of Afghan refugees back to Afghanistan, Benard offers “reassurance” to the Taliban critics. But what she offers is propaganda. It’s the soft-voiced rationalization of the Taliban regime from someone whose family helped shape the political conditions that empowered this brutal regime. Benard calls herself a feminist. But what type of feminism dismisses the fear of Afghan women living under the Taliban as “histrionic”? What kind of feminist points to a few saleswomen in Kabul as proof that things aren’t so bad for an estimated 20 million women and girls whom the Taliban have systematically banned from education, work, travel, and even visits to clinics without a male chaperone? What kind of feminist gives herself the audacity to speak for women whose oppressors she is trying hard to legitimize? This isn’t feminism. It’s imperial gaslighting from someone who earns a living from the military-industrial complex. She claims Afghanistan is “stabilizing.” Yes, because those who used to kill people daily are now in charge, and those who could resist have been imprisoned, tortured, or disappeared. When a terrorist group monopolizes the source of violence, then of course, things look calm. And yes, the calm that Benard and some tourists might experience in Kabul is not the reality for Afghan people, especially women. While Benard, as a white woman and the wife of Zalmay Khalilzad, the man who negotiated the Taliban’s return to power, is respected, protected, and can move freely around the city, millions of Afghan women are denied the right to simply exist in public. Last month, we reported how women were arrested, tortured, and publicly flogged for going to a clinic with a male cousin or for sitting in a cafe. Last year, we reported how the Taliban have raped some of the women who were forced to beg on the streets. These brutal realities didn’t make it into her piece about “stabilized” Afghanistan. I understand that Benard would likely never read our reporting, because to her, we are just a group of “histrionic” women, supposedly exaggerating the reality of life under the Taliban regime. How convenient. But what about the reports from the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan? From the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights? From Human Rights Watch? From Amnesty International? They all document that the Taliban are committing crimes against humanity. But to Benard, these must also be overdramatizations. She ignores the Taliban’s crimes entirely not because she doesn’t know, but because they disrupt the narrative she is trying hard to sell. Benard doesn’t just get Afghanistan wrong, she erases the voices of the very women she claims to advocate for. Let’s talk about those women she saw working on the streets of Kabul. Yes, there are women trying to earn a living. These women are not working with the Taliban’s permission, they are working in defiance of the Taliban’s rules. They are doing what they can to survive, to feed their children, to carve out scraps of dignity under a regime that wants them erased. What she doesn’t say is that thousands of women have been removed from public employment, including recently women professors. Even hundreds of thousands of women who worked in entirely female-dominated professions such as bakeries, women’s bathhouses, and beauty salons have been banned from working. Just to give you one example, 60,000 women across the country lost their livelihoods due to the closure of 12,000 beauty salons by the order of the Taliban. Most of these women were the breadwinners of their families and came from marginalized communities. And Kabul is not Afghanistan. Unfortunately, in most parts of Afghanistan even these minimal opportunities to resist do not exist. And we should remember that Kabul is where the Taliban are willing to perform tolerance for visitors like Benard, whose presence is useful to them. The Taliban know exactly what they’re doing: they allow women like Cheryl Benard to come in, take their curated tours, and return home to write glowing editorials that help whitewash their crimes and normalize their rule. Judging by her piece, Cheryl Benard and her husband are apparently the only ones doing the right thing for Afghanistan, without any interest in money or influence! How ironic, considering she is writing an entire piece to normalize a brutal regime and dismiss the systematic suffering of millions. If it were up to the Afghan people, the Taliban wouldn’t rule. The Taliban’s rise to power was facilitated by Benard’s husband. Khalilzad’s deal in Doha gave them everything: legitimacy, a timeline, and no commitment to women’s rights. Even now, she refuses to acknowledge that it was her husband who negotiated the Taliban’s return to power. Afghan people, especially Afghan women were never consulted. Our future was decided by men in suits, far from our streets. And now Cheryl Benard has the audacity to explain to us that it’s really not so bad. Benard’s article is not analysis. It is an act of selective sight, a distortion crafted to comfort Western policymakers who want to feel good about engaging with the Taliban and legitimizing their regime. It cherry-picks anecdotes, misrepresents data, and silences the very women she pretends to defend. Cheryl Benard, we don’t need your reassurance. We don’t need your travel stories. And we certainly don’t need another round of imperialist feminists explaining that the people who oppress us aren’t really so bad because they smiled at you while they have stripped us of our rights and freedoms. If the U.S. government chooses to send thousands of Afghans back into the hands of a regime that strips us of our rights, freedoms, and dignity, then do it but don’t pretend it’s for our good. And please, spare us the lecture of women like Cheryl Benard, who claim to know our country better than we do.
Zahra Nader is the editor-in-chief of Zan Times.}
Source: https://zantimes.com/2025/05/22/when-feminism-defends-the-taliban/

And


Taliban fire 91 female media workers
Jinha - Womens News Center - May 22, 2025
{Taliban fire 91 female media workers over budget cuts
The Taliban have dismissed 91 female media workers from the Radio Television of Afghanistan (RTA) over the budget cuts, according to the local reports.
News Center- Afghan women have faced oppression and rights violations since the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan on August 15, 2021. The Taliban dismissed 91 female employees from the Radio Television of Afghanistan (RTA), the public-broadcasting organization of Afghanistan based in Kabul, over the budget cuts in the country, local news outlets reported on Wednesday. According to the local reports, journalists, editors, and technical staff are among the dismissed female employees, who have not received their salaries for the past two months. The Taliban’s Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs has recently dismissed around 120 female employees from state-run kindergartens in Kabul.}
Source: https://jinhaagency.com/en/actual/taliban-fire-91-female-media-workers-over-budget-cuts-37049?page=1

And

Zantimes - May 22, 2025 - By: Sana Atef
{Narrative May 21, 2025
“I am nine, and I am the breadwinner”: A child labourer in Taliban-run Afghanistan
When I study, I feel like I leave this world behind. I go to a place where my mother no longer aches, and my sisters are not hungry. I’m Nazanin, I’m nine years old, and I’m from Kandahar. My favorite books are Life Skills for Grade 3 and Dari Language for Grade 4, which I borrowed from the girl next door. I treat them like treasures. Four years ago, my father died in a traffic accident. I was only five. That was the day everything in our lives changed. I’m the eldest of four girls — Fariba is seven, Rokhsara is four, and little Samira just turned two.
After my father passed away, my mother Zuleikha remarried my uncle, but he suffered from mental illness and soon disappeared. No one knows where he is. My mother is 35, but walks like an old woman. She’s worked for years to keep us fed — washing clothes, carpets, and blankets in people’s homes. Now she has a slipped disc and can barely stand. She still tries to help by baking dry bread for families who don’t have ovens or sewing simple children’s clothes. But it brings in very little — sometimes just 200 to 300 afghani (about $2 to $3). When she could no longer work, it became my turn. I wake up at 5 a.m. every day. I wrap my scarf tightly to cover my face and walk to people’s homes in our village. In some houses, I wash clothes. In others, carpets or blankets. I can’t wash carpets alone — my mother comes with me or we join other women. But I wash the clothes by myself. In summer, the heat reaches 41 degrees. My hands burn as I carry heavy water from outdoor toilets and scrub under the sun. At the end of the day, I might be paid in dry bread or a handful of flour. One family pays me 300 afghani a month. Altogether, I make less than 700 afghani ($8) a month — not enough for even tea and soap. We live in a single mud room at the edge of the village. There is no electricity, no running water. We’ve stretched an old sheet over the roof to block the sun. After work, I return home to cook bread, put my sisters to sleep, and take care of the rest of the housework. When I’m too tired to move, I lie on an old pillow in the corner, stare at the ceiling, and think of my dreams. I went to school for three years, but had to drop out in fourth grade to work. Still, I never stopped learning. For a while, I attended a religious school and practiced reading and writing. Now, when the neighbor girl — who is a teacher — has time, she teaches me and lends me books. Some nights, when everyone is asleep, I read under the faint beam of a flashlight. In those moments, I feel like my mind is flying. But I am always afraid. In Kandahar, the Taliban have banned women and girls from working. If they see me, they’ll arrest me. Once, when my mother and I were walking to a house, two men on a motorcycle — wearing black vests and carrying guns — saw us. One of them shouted, “Why is this girl on the street? Doesn’t she know it’s forbidden?” My mother tried to explain, but the other man yelled, “If we see you again, we’ll take you both!” Since then, we’ve only walked back roads and quiet alleys. Even some of the local men harass us. Once, as I left a house, a man from the village said, “Why does this girl go into people’s homes? Doesn’t she belong to anyone?” I said nothing and walked away quickly. I don’t want anyone saying anything bad about my mother. I don’t want anything to stop us from surviving. My biggest wish is for my mother to get well — to walk tall again, to cook warm bread for us, and to smile without pain.
*Names have been changed to protect the identity of the interviewees and writer. Sana Atif is a pseudonym for a Zan Times journalist in Afghanistan.}
Source: https://zantimes.com/2025/05/21/i-am-nine-and-i-am-the-breadwinner-a-child-labourer-in-taliban-run-afghanistan/

Earlier reports


At a UNHCR centre near the Torkham border, an Afghan family receives a health consultation
UN News - May 20, 2025
{Afghanistan’s returnees at a crossroads between collapse and recovery
Afghanistan stands at a critical juncture, where the large-scale return of refugees could either plunge the country deeper into crisis or contribute to a path of renewal and stability.
Since September 2023, some three million Afghans have returned – many having been forcibly deported from neighbouring Pakistan and Iran. Often, they arrive exhausted, disoriented, and stripped of their belongings. “They return to a homeland that is dramatically unprepared to receive them,” warned Arafat Jamal, the UNHCR Representative in Afghanistan. UN agencies have stepped in as stabilising forces, providing crucial support at a time of immense pressure. At border crossings for example, returnees receive cash grants to help them build shelters or launch small businesses.
Infrastructure boost
In communities absorbing large numbers of returnees, the UN has bolstered local infrastructure by constructing clinics, schools, housing, and livelihood projects. These efforts, said Mr. Jamal, have functioned both as essential “shock absorbers” and as “engines for regeneration” in areas under strain. “By nurturing such an ecosystem of hope, we have fuelled economic success,” he explained. Yet as international funding declines, the scale of support is being drastically reduced. Cash assistance per family has plummeted from $2,000 to just $150 – barely enough to cover basic needs. “This can help someone to survive, but not to thrive,” Mr. Jamal said. “Whereas once we provided restorative assistance, we now hand out pure survival money.”
Big dividend through coordination
He stressed that a coordinated response could transform the return of Afghans into an opportunity for stability, economic growth, and regional harmony. However, he also issued a stark warning: “If we do not come together, the demographic shock of disorganised return may instead tip us towards chaos.” The UN refugee agency reaffirmed its commitment to remain on the ground and continue saving lives “in war and peace”. But with greater support, Mr. Jamal emphasised, they could do far more.
“We can help to repair and rebuild the fabric of torn communities,” he concluded.}
Source: https://news.un.org/en/story/2025/05/1163461

Zantimes - May 20, 2025 - By: Younus Negah
{Mass dismissal of employees will have consequences for the Taliban
This year, civil servants of the Taliban’s self-declared emirate face even greater job insecurity and poverty than in previous years. In recent months, there have been shocking reports about a series of staff reductions, salary cuts, and layoffs among government employees. These stories no longer provoke widespread reaction they received in the first months of Taliban rule but now get lost in the long list of hardships imposed on the people of Afghanistan. Yet, at the same time, their effects are widespread and deeply concerning. Employees had widespread complaints about salary delays last winter. On the eve of the new solar year, Taliban officials announced that the two months of delayed salaries would be paid at the same time. Now, reports indicate that at least one month’s salary is still delayed, and in the best-case scenario, employees will not receive their wages until the end of the second month. On April 28, before government employees even received their first paycheques of the year, news broke about a “general letter from the Taliban’s Ministry of Finance” regarding a salary reduction for all employees of Taliban-controlled institutions. According to a report by 8am Media, this letter outlined that the starting salary for a grade one employee is set at 21,700 afghani a month, while it is only 4,960 afghani (or US$85) for an eighth grade workerA large number of civil servants work in grades five through eight, with monthly salaries below 7,000 afghani, or less than US$100. Even those meager salaries are impossible for those working outside the Taliban administration. Those who are dismissed or whose positions are cut cannot consistently earn enough in the oversaturated labour market of the private sector to afford a sack of flour, a container of oil, a few kilos of rice, or some beans. As a result, even the salary reduction of a few hundred or thousand government workers pushes them and their families into absolute hunger, while dismissals further increase their risk of death. Some suffered from the severe psychological distress, including Abdulwahid, the water management manager in Shinwari district of Parwan, who had a stroke upon hearing news of his layoff. Abdulwahid, who was in the fifth salary grade (which now pays 7,800 afghani) had already worked 40 days without pay. He died on May 1. As more and more news of staff reductions are reported in recent months, the the scale of the issue is becoming clearer.
The extent of layoffs
After the Taliban seized power in the middle of 2021, their commanders initially continued the administrative structure of the former Islamic Republic with only minor modifications, including the elimination of the Ministry of Women’s Affairs. In their first annual budget conference in April 2022, the Taliban announced that 820,000 government employees were receiving salaries “through the national budget.” By that time, the Taliban — financially aided by the U.S. and international organizations—had successfully navigated the expected economic crisis and managed to stabilize the currency. In city municipalities, reconstruction projects were underway, and mining operations as well as some agricultural projects were launched with much publicity. The Taliban sought to present themselves as being in control of the country’s economic situation, trying to justify their cultural, religious, and political repression under the guise of “ensuring stability” and economic security. According to the National Statistics and Information Authority of the former government of Afghanistan, there were 414,902 civil service employees a year before the Taliban takeover. The Taliban announced a figure of 820,000 government employees, including both civilian and military staff. Of the nearly 415,000 civil servants employed by the Republic, tens of thousands left the country after the Taliban came to power and were replaced by Taliban personnel. After that, thousands more were removed from administrative positions through purges, dismissals, and orders to stay home. Women were the first collective victims. As the Taliban imposed educational, recreational, and travel restrictions, women’s opportunities for employment in government offices and beyond became even narrower. Eventually, even women’s bakeries and public bathhouses were shut down. A year before the Taliban takeover, 107,000 women worked in the civil service, according to official statistics. Of this number, 36 held doctoral degrees, 1,321 had master’s degrees, 22,461 held bachelor’s degrees, and 75,642 had completed at least 12 years of education, while a small group in service roles had little or no formal education. Most of these educated women were removed from civil service positions and forced to stay home. On January 28, 2025, Pajhwok News Agency, citing a reliable source, reported that the number of women employees in Taliban-controlled institutions had dropped to 86,000, of whom 1,995 worked in the Ministry of Interior, while 6,354 had been ordered to remain at home. These figures reveal that around 23,000 women had already lost their jobs in civil service roles even before recent layoffs, with around 7,000 also ordered to stay at home. Now that a new wave of civil servant layoffs is occurring, it’s likely that the number of dismissals of women will increaseEven during the previous government, a large number of women served as teachers and university lecturers, but with the Talibanization of the educational system, non-Taliban teachers and professors have gradually been dismissed, forced to stay home, or compelled to flee. In 2020, the Ministry of Education had 187,440 employees. The Taliban plan to eliminate 90,000 of these positions. A significant portion of these are administrative staff, but most of those who will be laid off are teachers.
Political consequences of the dismissals
The Taliban do not believe in the public’s right to access information and do not consider dismissed employees worthy of receiving prior notice or any official notification. In a recent report published by Zan Times, interviewees stated that they received news of their layoff or dismissal via text message or a phone call. For some, like Abdulwahid in Parwan, they find out days or months later that their names were on lists of those being dismissed. Nevertheless, overall details about the Taliban’s plans to reduce the number of civil and military staff have leaked to the media, including statements from the Taliban themselves that 20 percent of all government employees will be dismissed. It appears that the same number of approximately 820,000 employees announced in the first “Emirate budget” were still listed as Taliban salary recipients, as of the end of last year. The positions of tens of thousands of non-Taliban employees who have been dismissed, forced to flee, or ordered to stay home in recent years had been filled by mullahs and Taliban fighters. Twenty percent of that number equals 164,000 people. A portion of this group of 164,000 consists of fighters — the thousands of young men who were misled by Taliban propaganda in villages and cities and joined the “jihad,” as well as fighters connected to less influential and marginalized commanders. Now, many are now losing their jobs. Where will these thousands of disgruntled fighters go, and which terrorist groups will exploit them? In addition, tens of thousands of those dismissed from civil positions will become more disillusioned with the Taliban than ever before. Due to unemployment and poverty, they and their children will be drawn toward anti-Taliban movements. During the 20 years of the Islamic Republic, the unemployed and those cast aside fuelled the war and contributed to deepening the crisis that would eventually envelop all of Afghanistan. The Taliban, Hizb ut-Tahrir, ISIS, and others lured tens of thousands of desperate families with the promise of salaries and spoils. Yet again, hunger and frustration seem destined to reshape the political landscape. Which forces will benefit from the rising discontent of the hungry and the oppressed is not yet clear. Unfortunately, those who support education and freedom currently lack the organization needed to lead the people’s legitimate grievances. At the same time, the ongoing repression and dismissals may spark protests and diminish the Taliban’s aura of invincibilityin the eyes of the people.
Younus Negah is a researcher and writer from Afghanistan who is currently in exile in Turkey.}
Source: https://zantimes.com/2025/05/20/mass-dismissal-of-employees-will-have-consequences-for-the-taliban/

And


Our child was born in an open field
Zantimes - May 19, 2025 - By: Farshid Aram
{‘Our child was born in an open field’: U.S. aid cuts deepen Afghanistan’s maternal health crisis
In late March, Khatira*, a 23-year-old woman in her ninth month of pregnancy, died alongside her unborn child in the Afghan village of Gharibabad, Herat province — simply because there was no clinic left to help her. The local health center had shut down months earlier, in October 2024, after international funding was cut. The nearest medical facility lay in Herat, across a river that becomes swollen and impassable in the late winter and early spring months, severing Gharibabad’s access. “I watched Khatira suffer in pain for a whole day,” Khatira’s husband, Joma Khan*, said. “At midnight, I carried her on my back and, with immense difficulty, crossed the river. We were both submerged up to our chests.” It took Khan more than 12 hours to reach Razaei Maternity Hospital in Herat. Without access to a car for the final leg of their journey, he and Khatira had to spend the night at a relative’s home. Come morning, they found the first available vehicle and rushed to the hospital, handing Khatira — wrapped in a blanket — over to the emergency unit. Razaei is the largest maternity hospital in western Afghanistan, serving women from at least four provinces in the region. In 2022, the hospital reported an average of 2,500 natural births and 500 caesarean sections each month. Five hours after arrival, doctors informed Khan that both his wife and their unborn child had died due to severe bleeding and prolonged labour. Khatira had suffered for 48 hours. Her death has become a common story of maternal mortality under Taliban rule in Afghanistan, which advocates say is exacerbated in large part by the shuttering of international aid programming. Since U.S. President Donald Trump took office in January, the United States has cut nearly all of its promised $1.8 billion in aid to Afghanistan, according to a report released last week by the Afghanistan Analysts Network, significantly impacting humanitarian and basic services, particularly health. The United Nations has also scaled back its relief efforts, now targeting 12.5 million Afghans instead of 16.8 million, with UN officials warning the cuts will “directly result in deaths.” The World Health Organization reports that nearly three million Afghans have lost access to healthcare due to the closure of 364 health centers since the beginning of this year. Another 220 are expected to shut down by the fall, meaning more than half of Afghanistan’s health facilities could be gone by year’s end. According to local sources, the only operational clinic in Kushk Rabat Sangi district is in the district center, staffed by just one midwife. A healthcare worker at the clinic confirmed that the number of women coming for childbirth has increased significantly in recent months, with approximately 120 births now occurring there each month. A senior doctor from the Herat provincial health department said the reduction in healthcare aid has impacted their operations: “Our healthcare workforce has been reduced, and many of the clinics supported by the World Health Organization have been shut down. We are witnessing the severe consequences of this situation in maternity wards.” Several districts in Herat, including Kushk Kuhna and Kushk Rabat Sangi, have been affected by clinic closures, according to the same health official.
Homa*, a resident of Gharibabad, told More to Her Story she was forced to give birth outdoors due to blocked roads and the absence of a functioning nearby clinic. “We were heading to the clinic on a tractor, but Homa’s labour pains became unbearable, and we didn’t make it. Our child was born in an open field without any medical help,” said Homa’s husband, Faizullah. At a press conference this week, UNFPA’s Andrew Saberton warned that a mother dies every two hours in Afghanistan from preventable pregnancy and childbirth complications. He said U.S. funding cuts have halted $102 million in UNFPA programs, leaving 6.3 million people — mostly women and children — without access to life-saving support. Yet the impact of health clinic closures extends far beyond pregnant women. In July 2024, a five-year-old boy from Shirabad village died after drinking water contaminated with worms. His mother, Marzia, recounted how he began suffering from frequent nosebleeds, which she initially assumed were caused by heatstroke. After he fainted two weeks later, she rushed him to the district clinic, where doctors said his condition was critical and he needed urgent transfer to a hospital in Herat. “We headed toward the city, but he died on the way,” she told More to Her Story. Safiullah, the village elder of Pain Deh in Kushk Rabat Sangi district, has observed a troubling rise in preventable deaths, noting that in the northeastern part of the district, home to about 120 villages, no functioning health centers remain. “In the past year, I’ve witnessed the deaths of three pregnant women and eight children between the ages of six months and seven years in nearby villages. Many families simply cannot get their sick to a health center or to Herat city in time,” he said. The Taliban’s Ministry of Public Health did not respond to More to Her Story’s questions about the total healthcare budget required to keep services running, their emergency health priorities, or any proposed plan to address the growing healthcare crisis. With more than half of Afghanistan’s health centers expected to close by year’s end, millions of Afghan women and children are being left to face life-threatening complications, alone.
*Names have been changed for safety. This article was co-published with More to Her Story.}
Link here: https://zantimes.com/2025/05/19/our-child-was-born-in-an-open-field-u-s-aid-cuts-deepen-afghanistans-maternal-health-crisis/

And


I Am A Woman
Jinha - Womens News Center - May 16, 2025 - By BAHARIN LEHIB
{Being women in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan: Flogging, imprisonment, resistance
Under the oppressive rule of the Taliban, Afghan women do not remain silent despite violence, imprisonment and humiliation faced by them.
Afghanistan- Since the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan on August 15, 2021, women have faced systemic gender oppression in Afghanistan. Public floggings, prison sentences, moral crimes and even sexual violence are used against women to silence them. This systemic gender oppression makes women resist more, instead of breaking women's determination to resist.
Women lead resistances
In patriarchal societies, women are the most oppressed. Although being oppressed, they lead resistances. For instance, women led the “Women, Life, Freedom” uprising in Iran and the fight against ISIS in Kobanê. Our history is full of stories showing how women lead resistances. Afghan women also lead the resistance in their country against the oppressive rule of the Taliban. She was flogged in public for going to a doctor with her brother-in-law.
More than 1,000 people, at least 200 of whom were women, have been humiliated in public floggings since the Taliban’s return to power in 2021, the Guardian said in a report on May 6, 2025. Nazia Wali, 28, was one of the 200 women. Nazia was sick and went to a doctor one summer day with her brother-in-law. On their way, their vehicle was stopped by the Taliban’s “morality police”. They were arrested and Nazia spent four days in jail. She was then sentenced to 30 lashes. She was brutally flogged in public by the Taliban after being accused of “moral crimes”. After 10 nights in prison, she was handed over to her family. Since then, she has had terrible nightmares, like thousands of other Afghan women. Now, she tries to return to normal life with the support of her family.
‘The Taliban aim to spread fear’
“In November 2022, Taliban leader Haibatullah Akhundzada ordered Afghan judges to impose punishments for certain crimes that may include public amputations and stoning. Since then, hundreds of men and women have been flogged in public in the country,” Fawzia Koofi said in a phone interview with NuJINHA. “The Taliban aim to spread fear. Without foreign financial support, the Taliban regime will collapse overnight, like the Ashraf Ghani’s regime. Afghan people, especially brave Afghan women, will play a decisive role in the collapse of the Taliban’s regime.”
‘Women do not remain silent’
Afghan women do not remain silent despite violence, imprisonment and humiliation faced by them, Fawzia Koofi emphasized. “Afghan women do not fear the Taliban; they challenge the Taliban government by resisting. The stories of women, who were brutally flogged in public by the Taliban, show that women are ready to pay any price for dignity, justice, and freedom. The resistance of the Afghan women and men against the Taliban will bear fruit sooner or later.”}
Source: https://jinhaagency.com/en/actual/being-women-in-taliban-ruled-afghanistan-flogging-imprisonment-resistance-37018

Women's Liberation Front 2019/cryfreedom.net 2025